


but here i blur into you

by runnyc33



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Major Character Death (in one universe), Multiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 19:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runnyc33/pseuds/runnyc33
Summary: She could fall up into the stars, maybe, or perhaps the whole sky could sink down around her, blanketing her, the weight of the blackness shot through with brilliant light.  In all the universes, she’s looking up at these same stars, isn’t she?





	but here i blur into you

The summer sun has long since set, the moon and stars high in the clear sky. Dark water twinkles with the calm rolling waves, reflecting the soft glow of the moon. Tessa’s legs hang over the edge of the dock, and the darkness laps arrhythmically at her ankles, tickling her skin. She’s grateful for the way the oversized sweatshirt she’s pulled on keeps in the warmth from her sun-soaked skin.

_ Primal, _ she thinks, as she wiggles her toes,  _ our connection with water. The way it grounds us, the comfort it brings. _

Her hair flutters softly in the gentle breeze. The earthy smell of the lake fills her nostrils, her lungs expanding with fresh air – restoring, reviving.

Tessa reclines; the rough grain of the worn dock is steady and strong against her back and head.

Stars twinkle above her, beckoning, in waves of motion. Is that one dancing with its partner? Does that one not blink in morse code?

We are made of star-stuff. Does the stardust in her scream out to its relatives in the sky?

She could fall up into them, maybe, or perhaps the whole sky could sink down around her, blanketing her, the weight of the blackness shot through with brilliant light.

In all the universes, she’s looking up at these same stars, isn’t she?

* * *

Even the chill of the lake water around her legs can’t ward off the steady burn in her shins and calves. The pain wraps itself around her lower legs and squeezes, relentlessly, dual pythons warring for attention.

Or maybe it’s not pythons at all; it’s psychosomatic, her mind clinging desperately to the past, to live up to the dreams of her younger self. She wonders if anything she ever accomplishes will be enough to allow her to let go.

But the truth is never that poetic. In the end, it’s simple. Two extraordinary careers were cut short because no scalpel, no surgeon could fix her body.

The guilt presses, heavy on her chest. It’s the weight of another person’s life.

The last time she saw Scott had been a chance encounter in a grocery store. She’d wrapped him in a hug first, but he had pulled her closer, squeezing tightly. Nose pressed to the fabric of his sweatshirt, it had been easy to inhale, to smell the faint crisp scent of the ice lingering there. Maybe he had just come from coaching, his whole heart and soul post-retirement, or maybe he had been practicing with Alexandria, getting ready for the next Stars on Ice tour.

Eyes closed, even now, she feels the same squeezing pressure around her, closing in around her heart in icy tendrils.

She had released him quickly after that.

The smile on his face had been broad, and she was proud of him. He found himself a home, carved from ice; she had run from it. Her feet had never touched ice since their medal ceremony in Vancouver, where they listened to the Star-Spangled Banner play over the loudspeakers. If she could have, she wouldn’t have even gotten on ice for that. Her goodbye would have been Mahler, where halfway though, tears stinging her eyes as she willed herself to stay upright, the sudden realization had hit her: I’m done. The sudden rush of relief had been the only thing to help her hobble across the finish line, doing just well enough to capture bronze at their home Games.

He had cradled her in the final position, said “thank you”, and she had smiled back at him, and said, “this is it”.

Maybe it’s right that now, like always, her palm itches, the feeling of a phantom hand gripping hers tightly. She’d made the decision unilaterally, and it haunted her. That’s why she’s alone now, she thinks, with shins that still hurt and a nightmarish case weighing on her shoulders, piles of papers calling for her attention in her bedroom in the empty cabin, even as she’s supposed to be decompressing over the weekend.

_ What, _ Tessa thinks,  _ would another you think of me? You, the version of me who could’ve kept going? _

* * *

A frog croaks loudly somewhere to her left, but then it’s silent. The quiet skitters along her skin, and her body tenses, primed to leap up and go check on – but no, she thinks, her muscles already unspooling. Quiet’s hard enough to come by these days; there’s no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth.

A smile spreads across her face as she remembers how naively she had stood next to Scott on that platform in Sochi, gold medals heavy around their necks, and squeezed his hand, whispered in his ear, “Can you believe that now we’ll get some peace?”

Peace, it turns out, is not for three-time gold medalists, especially not gold medalists with a story as compelling as theirs: switching coaching teams at the eleventh hour to work with Marie France and Patrice, overcoming judging controversy with beautifully clean skates and intense audience support to inch out a win over their American rivals.

Peace is even more elusive when, two years out from the Sochi games, Scott gets down on one knee and proposes.

She runs her fingers over the twin bands on her left ring finger, one plain and unadorned, the other with a single diamond flanked by emeralds. The proposal had been perfect: intimate, small, just the two of them. They picked up ice cream cones and drove back home to the house they shared, the house that had been Scott’s post-Sochi project, something concrete to ground him during the Olympic crash. While a vivid sunset painted the sky, they ate the dessert on the porch quietly. As the final rays slowly faded into the pale blue of evening dark, Scott got down on one knee and held out the ring, his face open and eager, his eyebrows quirked upwards. He never spoke a word, but she did.

It was, she thought, perfect, no matter how often people frowned when she told it, like it wasn’t romantic enough, like it should have taken place on the rink or referenced their entire career.

Instead, it referenced what they were building together, their next great project.

Suddenly, a sticky hand lands in her hair, pulling slightly. “Mama!” a voice cries, making her wince at its loudness in contrast with the peaceful silence of the moments before.

“Hey nugget,” Tessa says, pulling her son closer to her body. “Where’s your dad and sister, huh?”

A shriek sounds through the night. She laughs, because without looking, she knows Scott has their daughter on his shoulders, prancing around the yard as the girl twists her hands into his salt and pepper locks.

Her son shuffles next to her, running fingers over her side. “What are you doing, Mama?”

She points up at the sky, and he follows her gaze, almost capsizing when he cranes his neck too far. “Looking at the stars, little one. Look at how they shine for you.” She spares a moment to look at the wonder in his face, before turning back to the heavens.

Silently, she hopes the other versions of her have this happiness.

* * *

A star catches Tessa’s eye. It’s not remarkable, not the brightest in the sky, but it seems more active than the rest. She imagines that it twirls around its partner, before twinkling down at her, asking a question.

_ Don’t do that, _ she thinks, desperately, pushing the thought into space.  _ Don’t act like it’s fine. It’s too hard to be the one left behind. _

Sometimes, she just stops breathing with the pressure of it, the knowledge that this universe, if it were fairer, if it were better – it would have taken her and left him. She doesn’t breathe until her lungs cry out, and she pulls in deep, desperate breaths.

_ So many people miss you, _ she thinks at the star.

His brothers have folded her into their lives, substituted Aunt Tessa for the absent Uncle Scott. She showers his nieces and nephews, his pride and joy, with love and affection: attends every birthday party, brings gifts from around the world, shows up for dinner just because. She hears the way Scott’s brothers teach their children about Scott in reverent terms, showing them home videos and skating performances. Trying to make sure they won’t forget him. But the kids still are.

She’d tried, once, to get Alma to go to the rink with her for one of the kids’ birthday parties. They held hands tightly and for a moment, Tessa thought of all the times at the boards, where Scott had gripped her hands and squeezed twice, just before they’d stroke onto the ice for a performance.

Alma hadn’t squeezed though, just intertwined their fingers and tried to breathe as tears fell. Tessa didn’t look at her, but instead stared up at the blue building, paint flaking away the walls, for minutes, until Alma had whispered, “I can’t.”

_ If it were fair,  _ she thinks from her place on the dock,  _ it would be me up there. People might miss me, but not in this visceral way. _

The star twinkles merrily, and she curses it.  _ Don’t. Help us. _

_ Help me. _

Her biographies for sponsorships leave his name off them, more and more, and it’s a gaping hole.

A light flips on from behind her, casting shadows a little more prominently on the dock, and Emily and Michael’s voices are loud. The words are indistinguishable from this distance, but she can hear the tone of them, the rise and fall of jokes as they rib each other.

Their chemistry had been unmistakable from the first time they auditioned for her, seeking out her coaching services. Now, four years later, this trip to the cottage is an annual tradition, a space for them to take a moment to treasure the time they have together.

She knows she’ll have to return to them soon, bundle up and brainstorm some more, set intentions for the season ahead. But for now. She breathes in.

She wonders, sometimes, if she’s coaching only because she knows it’s what Scott would’ve done. That maybe, in this way, she can live up to his memory.

Laughter fills the air, and she smiles, imagining a different season beginning, imagining when it was Tessa and Scott, sitting here, with their feet in the water and discussing every possible permutation for what laid ahead.

_ Time together, _ she thinks, her eyes fixed on the dancing star.  _ Somewhere, you’re getting time together with another me. I know it. _

* * *

The warmth radiates from the body next to her, and she’s suddenly a little resentful of the sweatshirt she’s wearing. If she didn’t have it, their skin would be pressed together, slightly tacky even, as though the molecules in him reach out to hers, twining together.

Her hand takes his, threading their fingers together. His thumb strokes side of her pointer finger, and it could tickle, maybe, if it weren’t so soothing.

She doesn’t turn to look at him; she doesn’t need to. He’s right there, her Scott, a solid presence.

He doesn’t look at her either, doesn’t break the silence with a joke.

He respects the moment, she realizes, enough to tamper down on his instincts. She’s told him before of how important these quiet nights are to her, of how she sits here, at the end of the dock at the cottage, and falls into the stars, and it’s like she’s hundreds of other Tessa’s, simultaneously, in hundreds of other universes.

Sometimes, she had told him, she wonders if she’ll get stuck in one of them.

He had asked her if any of them were better, were versions of the world she wished had happened here.

It had been easy to pull his hand to her mouth, and murmur no against his skin, as she pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. To push him down on the couch cushions, and straddle his hips, and kiss him, before pulling back slightly.  _ No,  _ she had thought privately, appraising him.  _ No version of the world could live up to this one, this version of him, this version of her. _

She’s never invited him to join her on the dock before, though, and she can’t deny that there was a prickle like fear across her skin at whether he could really understand.

But with him so silent, so still, she wonders. She wonders if he’s lost in the stars, too. If he’s visiting other hims like she’s visited other hers. If he’ll come back to her and she can ask him if he’d choose those universes, and he’ll say no.

The stars sparkle above her, and she watches them dance, hoping the other hers enjoy the show.

* * *

She thinks she might still feel the ghost of his warmth, there, maybe… maybe if she doesn’t blink, that strange sense of comfort won’t fade away….

She closes her eyes, letting the vision fade away, but the warmth doesn’t dissipate.

She turns away from the stars, and Jordan’s lying there, beside her. “Hey, when did you get here?”

“Just a minute ago.” Jordan studies her, head tilted slightly. “You seemed… far away.”

Tessa smiles, wistfully. “Just lost in my thoughts. Mom get the fire going yet?”

Jordan grins and nods. “And I may have already dipped into the s’mores supplies…”

She scoffs, loudly. “Alright, just for that, I’m stealing at least half the chocolate all for myself. Double the bars, every time.”

Jordan’s laughter is comforting. After getting to her feet, she extends a hand to help Tessa up. She slings an arm around her sister, and Tessa worms one around her midsection.

At the top of the steps, she turns back for a second, looking at the stars over the water.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jordan says.

“Yeah,” Tessa breathes, thinking of the universes that could be. The universe that is, where she’s here, with her mother and her sister, and five Olympic medals, and a world of new opportunities and possibilities - and a best friend that’s happy and healthy.

The fire crackles, the sound inviting. They leave the dark water behind to approach the fire pit where their mother waits.

Behind them, a shooting star streaks across the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Huge shout out to Chey and Hayley for their beta work on this, and for encouraging me that it was not trash and I should not scrape the entire project... something I came dangerously close to doing multiple times.
> 
> According to tumblr, the title is from Margaret Atwood's "Pre-Amphibian".


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